rock'n'rill

Bill Carter - a better man is hard to find

As many of you know the time I spent in Austin, Tx. in 94/95 was a supremely inspiring part of my life. It basically gave me the road map on how to be a songwriter/performer/artist. There’s just something about the ethos of the Austin music scene that has rubbed off on me. Shoot as high as you can with your art but keep your feet planted firmly on the ground as a person. And every now and then I find validation that this truly is the way to go.

A songwriter who impersonates that kind of attitude is Bill Carter (www.billcarterandtheblame.com).

The first time I heard of him was even before I went to Austin so it must’ve been in the early 90ies. I bought his LP “Loaded Dice” based on the fine print. Produced by Chuck Leavell (Stones-keyboarder), featuring Kenny Aronoff on drums, the Vaughan brothers on guitars and more players of that caliber. It’s a very fresh, rockin’ album not unlike, say, a Delbert McClinton record. Bill has a different set of pipes but a similar sense of humor and attitude when it comes to mixing blues, boogie, country and rock’n’roll into a big ol’ mess of Texas music.

So after I’d moved to Austin and found that he was playing local gigs, I went to see him. He was regularly playing in an acoustic trio at the time. I remember for sure that Will Sexton (Charlie’s brother) was one of his sidemen then (still is, in fact). My memory is playing tricks on me on who the second collaborator was. Could’ve been David Holt (guitar), may have been Michael Ramos (accordeon). The reason I’m unsure is that Bill hawked a tape of acoustic recordings at the time named “Lifelong Rhapsody”. This tape was recorded w/ Holt & Ramos and featured Stephen Bruton on a couple tracks playing mandolin. Only one of them was playing with him in 94/95 and I can’t remember who cause I saw a lot of both Ramos & Holt in the other formations they played all over town.

I enjoyed those acoustic shows and that tape so much that I wore out the tape and went to see them again and again and again. It got to where I was standing at the urinal next to Will Sexton and he went “hey man” – that’s how used they were to seeing me around at most every gig they played.

Despite the fact that Bill played low-key gigs around town, he was and still is a major songwriter. He co-wrote Stevie Ray Vaughan’s greatest song “Crossfire” and several numbers for Jimmie Vaughan’s power blues outfit “The Fabulous Thunderbirds”, among them “Why Get Up?”. You may also have heard “Jacksboro Highway” which was recorded by John Mayall.

The songs he wrote – many, if not most of them in tandem with his wife Ruth Ellsworth – were also recorded by ZZ Top, The Stray Cats, Robert Palmer, Counting Crows, Waylon Jennings, Omar and the Howlers, Brian Setzer Orchestra and many more. Now that’s a high-caliber songwriter!

Somewhere in Rolling Stone magazine I had read about actor Johnny Depp making a record with a certain Bill Carter on bass. I had no idea if it was indeed Austin’s own Bill Carter so I asked him at a gig and he was immediately very friendly, replying with “yeah, man. That’s me. I’ll bring you a copy of that CD next time you show up.” And he did. Didn’t ask me to pay for it, either. (I gave him a demo tape of mine in exchange :-))

And you know what I found last week on Youtube? A video of Bill Carter playing the Continental Club in Austin with Johnny Depp on guitar and ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons sitting in with them (curious? Here ya go). The internet tells me that Bill – who is in great shape – is sometimes referred to as Johnny Depp’s personal trainer. At any rate, it seems they’re still close friends. Back in the mid-90ies the rumour in Austin was that he spent a few months in L.A. to hang out with Johnny Depp while he was shooting a movie (I believe it was “Donnie Brasco” with Al Pacino.)

Rediscovering Bill like this on the web led to me approaching him on Facebook and asking whether maybe Lifelong Rhapsody had ever come out on CD and, if so, could I buy it from him? He said it was only ever released on tape but he’d make a CD copy of it and would send it over to Germany. And he did. The CD arrived last week with a short personal note.

Can you imagine? He doesn’t know me from Adam and he goes to the trouble of making a CD and sending it to Germany, even paying postage, just to make a music lover happy. Just like he gave me that CD of his band P with Johnny Depp way back then. That’s true class.

And the songs still blow me away. Every single song on that tape is a gem. Wonderful lyrics full of wisdom and melancholia, great storytelling and a great wistful sound thanks to Michael Ramos’s stellar accordion playing.

• ”Greg & Virginia” is a wonderful song based on the narrator seeing those names in a heart drawn into concrete and wondering whatever might’ve become of them.
• “Jack Knife Slide” is the story of blues guitarist and gospel singer Blind Willie playing slide not with a bottleneck but with a jackknife. “Nothing sounded sweeter or could make you a believer/ like Willie singing to that jack knife slide”.
• “12:09” is the story of a young man waiting for his lover to arrive on the 12:09 train only to learn that the train had an accident and his fiancée has passed away.
• “Knoxville Farewell” is the story of a young man bidding his lover farewell for he must go and fight in the civil war. “The news is bad, the north is moving south/ and I hear by word of mouth/ it’s a bloody scene. All my brothers are hungry sick & cold/their days are numbered I am told/ and I must leave. Hold on, Virginia, for me/ when I return to Tennessee/when no battle flags fly, I’ll make you my bride/hold on, Virginia, for me”.
• “The Coal Stays In The Ground” tells the story of a mining town after the mines are closed. “Now no work whistle blows/ the stores are all closed/ and the coal stays in the ground”.

And on and on, one fantastic beautiful song after another, good enough to slay you!!

You know I love all-acoustic records and I rate this one with the best of them, Steve Earle’s Train A-Comin, Johnny Cash’s American Recordings, John Hiatt’s Crossing Muddy Waters.

All this is just to say that Bill Carter is a damn fine songwriter, a true master of the art, and a damn fine human being to boot. Do check him out! Please do!

PS: I’m very tempted to record simple versions of a song or two from that tape just so you can hear them. I’ll probably post them sometime this or next week.

15 November 2011 ·